THE NEW YORKER Caribbean, which Colum- bus explored on his four voyages. We learned this over lunch with Mauricio Obregón, who has been Colombia's Ambassador to Venezuela and to the Or- ganization of American States, and who is current- ly its Ambassador-at-large in the Caribbean states; he is also a founder and past president of the University of the Andes, in Bogotá, and was until his term ex- pired in June the only foreign member of the Board of Overseers of Har- vard. Mr. Obregón, who was a student at Harvard, speaks impeccable English. He is a distinguished -look- ing man in his sixties with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard, and, in addition to being a diplomat and a teacher, he is an explorer and the author of several books on exploration. Most of his expeditions have ... been in the tracks of the great explorers of the past- in particular, Columbus and Magellan. Many of his trips were in the com- pany of the late Samuel Eliot Morison, who taught a famous course in explo- ration at Harvard, and each of the two frequently turns up in the other's books. Together, they wrote "The Caribbean As Columbus Saw It." When we met with Mr. Obregón recently, he told us that the President of Colombia had put him in charge of Colombia's Committee for the Quinquecentennial-or, as Mr. Obregón, who is as precise in conver- sation as he is in appearance, corrected himself, the President made him exec- utive vice-chairman of the committee, for a former President of Colombia, Carlos Lleras, is the chairman. "Some years ago, the King of Spain called together delegates from all the His- panic countries and said that we should take the initiative for plans for the Quinquecentennial-or V Centena- rio, as we call it," Mr. Obregón said. "Each country works on its own plans, but we get together every year to coördinate. We've just had a meet- ing in Costa Rica Sometimes the meetings are quite political. We've j.. , C-- *' 25 c \ && "It sure is great to be back in France." . decided to let the Portuguese in, and, of course, the Brazilians are in, so we are not just Hispanic-Americans but Ibero-Americans. Then, we've argued about whether to let other groups in. We have invited your committee of observers to join, and we've decided to let the Haitians and the Bahamians in, too. We had to, as the Bahamas are the first place Columbus landed, and he also visited Haiti on his first voyage. " Since a main event of the Quin- quecen tennial will be sailing replicas of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María across the Atlantic on Colum- bus's course, we asked Mr. Obregón if their sailors would know where to go -that is, if Columbus's first land- fall in the New World is known. "There's a big argument about . whether he landed on San Salvador or on some other Bahamian island," Mr. Obregón said. "There's a whole bunch of us for San Salvador, but others say it was Cat Island, and still others say it was the Turks and Caicos Islands. Morison and I were-and I am-for San Salvador, for a number of reasons. When Columbus made his first landfall, he came from the east and he saw white cliffs-and San Sal- vador has white cliffs in the right place. I persuaded our Navy to take me on its big training ship, the square-rigger Gloria, on its way to New York for the centennial of the Statue of Liberty and we approached the island at dawn, as Columbus did. And I saw the white cliffs. After see- ing the cliffs, Columbus had to sail around the island to find a breach in